from there,he rode the 911 wave, until it broke from world wide anti bush Sentiment. He hitched his horse to Bushs post and went out with Bush.
In one sense I can empathise with Howard, he was blocks away from the WTC's (visiting his mate Dubya, I think) when it went down. He's never wavered from the Dubya doctrine since.
You were over in the west? Very conservative country. We do suffer from a certain cultural cringe, and a dominating influence of US TV, corporate and churchianity working hard on us, its generally not appreciated.